


32 Footsteps

by eruthiel



Category: The Monster Hunters (Podcast)
Genre: 1970s, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Episode: S02E07 Bride of the Deep, Nightmares, Other, Songfic, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-06-30
Packaged: 2018-07-19 04:18:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7344568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eruthiel/pseuds/eruthiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life aboard the SS Seafinder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	32 Footsteps

**Author's Note:**

> I tagged all the characters mentioned (and both ships implied), but really it's just about Roy being a huge mess in the week before Lorrie finds him in BotD. Inspired by [32 Footsteps by TMBG](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-3sIJ_N3mw). Hope you like!

  1. His cabin has a low ceiling and no windows. He has nothing to unpack.


  1. When he passes out, the porters drag him there, out of sight. Each time, he wakes up in bed with no memory of leaving the bar. Each time, he stumbles back up to the restaurant and starts again.


  1. He had forgotten the way people react. Not just Lorrimer grimacing at the reek after a heavy night; not even simple disgust, though that's certainly part of it. He had forgotten the way people look at you when you drink like this, day after day, right out in the open.


  1. He still feels shame. He's only stopped listening to it.


  1. He had forgotten all the words there are for someone like him. The American passengers even have some he hasn't heard before.


  1. When he wakes up, he remembers Griselda shoving a gun in his face.


  1. When he wakes up, he remembers Greg kissing his forehead. He doesn't know exactly when this happened, but he knows it was the first time he was kissed by anyone other than his mother.


  1. When he wakes up, he remembers Sir Maxwell telling him to stop moping around and get on with the job I'm paying you for, understood?


  1. Danny asks what's wrong, but no matter how many times Roy tells him the story, he doesn't understand.


  1. Before Suki brought him to Sir Maxwell, she took his photograph. Right there in his room above the bar, on the dirty blanket, on the bloodied floorboards. _In case you ever need reminding._


  1. When the sea is rough, everyone gets sick together.


  1. When the sea is calm, he gets sick by himself.


  1. _This is how we found you. This is what you did with freedom._


  1. He doesn't kid himself that Suki will rescue him this time.


  1. Danny tells him to stop annoying the proper passengers.


  1. He dreams about fucking a girl who grins and he sees she's been a shark the whole time. He shoots the shark and as its body sinks through the black water, he realises it was a girl after all.


  1. His gut aches and his hands twitch. His clothes don't fit. He hasn't shaved in a while. He hasn't bathed in a while.


  1. He hasn't got away from the monsters. They're still here, it's just that nobody else can see them.


  1. Lorrimer's going to get mauled by a werewolf and die and Suki's going to cry and everyone will blame him because it will be his fault.


  1. He overhears passengers who are sure they recognise him from somewhere, arguing about who he is, or who he used to be.


  1. The restaurant is full of mirrors to make it look roomier than it is. He's gotten much better at not seeing them. Instead he looks at the whorls in the off-white plaster ceiling and in the fog parting for the ship in the early morning, when everyone is still in their cabins, and he wonders if he's really alone on this ocean.


  1. He fantasises about going back in time and punching himself in the face before it's too late.


  1. Lorrimer never shouted at him for helping her, stealing for her, letting her kill so many people. He never even said "I told you so."


  1. stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid


  1. Even if he disappears to the bottom of the ocean, all his fuck-ups will persist up here, in the real world, indelible. He needs to find a way to dissolve completely, out of the minds of everyone he's ever let down. Un-becoming, more than death, a total annihilation.


  1. He can't go back.


  1. The waves look ever so soft and welcoming.


  1. If he went back, after all the trouble he caused? To keep living under Lorrimer's roof like nothing happened? To look evil in the face again, knowing that he's doomed to spend his life failing, one way or another?


  1. He's always been stupid.


  1. All he wanted was to have a good time.


  1. The ground heaves under his feet. The ship moans, the earth groans. Cracks open in the mud and grass. His stomach lurches. He falls and falls and falls.


  1. He dreams about standing on an underground train platform. Something is roaring for him out of the dark, but it's not a train.




End file.
